


the things you do for love are gonna come back to you (one by one)

by sidneysid



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Suicidal Ideation, Gen, POV Michael, does it count as a fe3h au if i change nearly every proper noun? i think yes, the lucisan is only implied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26566231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidneysid/pseuds/sidneysid
Summary: Michael does not trust love, she does not trust hope, and she certainly does not trust Sandalphon.[A GBF au, loosely based on the setting and plot of Fire Emblem: Three Houses]
Relationships: Lucifer/Sandalphon (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. Familiar

The first man Michael ever loved used her trust to kill their king. He laughed in her face, afterwards, and thanked her for being so _eager to please_.

The first woman Michael ever loved died the next year in a border skirmish. They had trained with each other, stood hand in hand in the moonlight speaking of their hopes and dreams, and then she went to protect a strip of barren wasteland and never came back.

Love is not the noble pursuit that ballads so sweetly spin. It is a gap in the armour, poison slipped into wine, a knife in the back. It is a weakness none of them can afford.

She thought Lucifer knew that too. 

———

The Officer’s Academy is located within Canaan Monastery, in the centre of the Phantagrande Archipelago. Canaan and its surrounding islands made up the Astral Isles, homeland of the students of the Bright Stars house. The other four houses are comprised of students from the island groups to the north, east, south and west. 

Royalty, nobility and commoners alike study and train together, forging bonds and alliances which keep the Archipelago in a state of relative peace, all under the watchful gaze of the Archbishop and the Knights of Helel.

———

Michael had expected her stay at the monastery to be peaceful and enlightening. Lucifer, future King of the Astral Isles, was house leader, but the Isles had been mostly peaceful since the failed rebellion three years ago. She had been looking forward to a fruitful year of preparation and study before Lucifer’s coronation.

Their troubles had begun three months after the new twin Professors had joined the Academy. They had been members of a mercenary crew that came to the aid of several students during a bandit attack, and nobody had been surprised when the Archbishop noticed their skill and invited them—and several of their crew members— to join the ranks of the Academy. 

What had been a shock was that the twins had been assigned as professors rather than students. Michael felt fairly certain they had to be younger than herself, though none of the other students seemed to know exactly how old they were. She and her three closest friends had all been born 18 years ago, with Lucifer their elder by a year. To be taught by a child when she was at the verge of adulthood felt like some kind of joke.

But the Archbishop’s word was final, delivered from beneath his face-concealing veil with the same cheerful tone he used when discussing changes to the dining hall menu. The twin Professors were assigned to the Bright Stars house, accompanied by the talking wyvernling Vyrn. The rest of the mercenary crew were recruited into the ranks of the Knights, though they happily lent their expertise as part-time teachers. 

The Cyan Hounds, coming as they did from the Holy Kingdoms of the North, had a cultural obsession with knights. Many had developed a habit of challenging Katalina to sparring matches when they should have been studying. She had not lost a single session yet, though that only seemed to spit them on.

The Jade Geckos seemed for the most part uninterested in learning from their new teaching staff and rather more interested in attempting to turn their life stories—or their own interpretations of those life stories, laced with rumour and wholesale fantasy—into new paintings, poems, and at least one mid-length opera. This was to the amusement of the healer Rosetta, who deftly avoided their questioning and left them coming up with increasingly implausible fictitious histories for her. Io, Rosetta’s apprentice, was young enough to be a student but had opted to focus on learning healing arts under her mentor. 

The Scarlet Doves took a keen interest in the expertise of the gunslinger and engineer Rackam, the students heavily influenced by the technologically advanced Erste Empire slowly expanding across the Southlands. The Umber Foxes came from the great western forests and often kept to themselves but, despite their distrust of outsiders, they gravitated towards the mercenary Eugen. He seemed less than happy when told it was due to their cultural tradition of venerating the wisdom of elders. 

Then there was Lyria, Katalina’s ward. The young girl was the only member of the crew who had been enrolled as student, owing both to her young age and relative lack of experience in battle. She had been assigned to the same house as Michael, the Bright Stars, under the watch of their new Professors.

Despite the many changes Michael still felt certain she would have a peaceful, fruitful year at the Academy. That lasted until a memorable training expedition where the class discovered that Lyria had the ability to commune with the spirits of the land, calling upon them to both take down her enemies and aid her allies. The girl was sweet, and she had been so afraid when her secret had been revealed, but Michael had to admit that a shiver of fear had run down her spine when she realised how dangerous the girl’s powers could be in the wrong hands. 

They had been sworn to secrecy, of course, but it was inevitable that peace would not last. During their next month-end battle Lyria was kidnapped. The other teachers had to practically tie Katalina to her chair to prevent her tracking the girl down, and even then she seemed to barely sleep as she threw herself into discovering who could have taken the girl and where she could be now.

They did track Lyria down, by month’s end. And that was when Michael met Sandalphon.

———

Halos are a powerful thing. Legends tell how they were gifted to a band of ancient heroes by the Goddess, a blessing carried down through bloodlines and across history. Some believe that they share a link to the ancient spirits that slumber underneath the islands, linking those noble lineages to their lands in the most literal sense.

Many of the students at the Academy hold Halos. They are particularly common in the noble families of the Astral Isles, occurring with less frequency amongst nobility from the other islands. Michael knows how so many of her peers struggle with the demands of their Halos and their noble houses and, though some part of her wishes they would simply accept their lot as she did, another part feels some measure of sympathy. It is a great responsibility to carry the Goddess’s gift.

Michael was born with the Halo of Flame, that of the great knight who rode beside the Goddess’s champion. She was not alone in inheriting that Halo and yet she, amongst all her relatives, had been chosen to be the next Sword of the King. It filled her with pride and purpose, but she was careful not to let her ego override her good sense. 

(The knowledge of who it was that had recommended her to that position was a persistent thorn in her side, a worry she pushed far down and chained away. She would never be so weak again—she would earn the title she had been given). 

Lucifer held the Halo of Providence, the gift bestowed to the Goddess’s greatest champion and held by every King of the Astral Isles since the Goddess’s descent. 

Lyria’s captor held a Halo as well.

———

After they had tracked him to the caverns he was hiding in—an ancient ruin with some tenuous link to the Church—Lyria’s kidnapper had unleashed a wave of monsters and a thick fog to obscure vision. He wielded his Halo clumsily but to great effect, using the smog of the battlefield to attack the students from their blind spots. Only the glow of his Halo had given away his position, always too far away to reach before he vanished again. There was something oddly familiar about that glow, distractingly so, but Michael had pushed those thoughts away to focus on defeating him and rescuing her classmate.

Even if he’d attacked her head-on she wouldn’t have gotten an honourable battle from him. In skill-at-arms she was his superior, but the unnatural strength of his Halo had given him an undeniable advantage. After he’d disarmed her—a cheap trick involving a flash of light directed at her eyes and a kick to the back of her knee, sending her sprawling on the floor and half-blinded—he’d stomped the heel of his boot into her good sword hand so hard that she screamed, then left her writhing in the dirt. 

_And_ he’d stolen her sword.

———

It wasn’t their twin Professors who took him down after that. They’d tried and they’d failed, and Sandalphon would surely have completed whatever his plan was if Lucifer himself hadn’t finally appeared, riding to their rescue like the champion he descended from.

Michael isn’t certain what exactly happened between the two of them. Gabriel was too busy healing the wounded students, Raphael _was_ a wounded student, and Uriel had been protecting them from the monsters crawling in the caverns. Only the twin Professors, Lyria, and little Vyrn were with them, deep in the heart of the ruins.

Lucifer already knew Sandalphon, that much was for certain. When did they meet? How did they know one another? Nobody had any answers. Lucifer was vague and circumspect, Sandalphon too snappish to question, and the twin Professors both did their best impressions of a brick wall. Even Lyria, shaking like a leaf, had only said that it was not her place to speak of other people’s private matters.

All Michael knows is that after getting carted back to the Academy, both Lucifer and Lyria had vouched for the boy’s ‘potential’, and he ended up enrolled as a student in _her damn house._

———

Luckily, the professors at the Academy had enough sense not to allow a vicious rogue and literal kidnapper to walk the grounds without any supervision. He wasn’t allowed to take part in weapon’s training, was barred from leaving the monastery, and had to report his movement to the twin Professors if he went anywhere other than the classrooms or his dormitory.

Unluckily, Michael had to move rooms since the room next to Lucifer’s in the Bright Stars dormitory was now supposed to be Sandalphon’s. If it had been anybody but Lucifer who had asked her she would have refused. She was supposed to be Lucifer’s sword, at a moment’s call in case of an attack. Now she was five rooms away and a very probable threat had taken her place by his side.

A month had passed since the day Sandalphon was enrolled into the Academy. A long month, where he sat at the back of the classroom and refused to take part in anything class-related unless specifically directed. Nobody was particularly interested in talking to him, other than Lucifer who seemed ever-determined to magically transform the moping villain into a normal student. Whatever bond they shared seemed to override his good sense.

Sandalphon ate alone in the dining hall and returned immediately to his room, unless the Professors called him for some chore or after-class task. 

Michael, though she had not been instructed to, kept a close eye on him. Her hand ached each time she saw him in the corridors. 

———

The upside of having to switch rooms was that, although she no longer resided in it, she knew its quirks. She knew that there was a vent underneath the bed, and that noises from outside the room would be easily heard from inside it. She knew, also, that noises from inside the room could be easily heard from outside it, if one knelt by the wall to tie their bootlaces. It was why she never held important conversations in her room. 

She could hear the raised voices even before she knelt down, but it wasn’t until she brought her ear closer to the vent that they became understandable.

“-don’t understand why you don’t just kill me, then!”

… Was not what she was expecting to hear. Lucifer’s voice is so soft that she can’t make out the words, but whatever he said does nothing to calm Sandalphon. 

“You killed Lucilius.” 

His retort is scornful, and Michael nearly stands up to knock his damn door down for daring to speak of that incident so casually, but Lucifer’s voice is unwavering when he replies, “I did.”

There’s a stretch of silence. Sandalphon’s voice is lower but still seething with resentment. “I don’t get why you’re keeping me like this instead of just disposing of me. Do you want to punish me before my execution? Or are you hoping for a slow death from interminable _boredom_.”

“Sandalphon.” Lucifer pauses and Michael can so easily picture his thoughtful face in her mind’s eye, mulling over his words with his usual caution. Her hands were still at the top of her boot, laces long abandoned. “I’m not going to execute you.”

“So make use of me properly! I won’t be a caged pet to soothe your royal ego.”

“You tried to awaken Avatar.”

He did what?

“And you stopped me. Obviously. Finally going to gloat about that?”

“Everybody faces consequences for their actions. These are yours. You need to prove that you can be trusted if you-”

Sandalphon cuts him off. “I don’t want to prove myself, I want… I don’t want anything. You’re just wasting time. None of these people will ever trust me, and they don’t need to.”

She has to strain her hearing to pick up Lucifer’s voice. “You aren’t a bad person. The others will see that too, once they get to know you.”

“You’re delusional. I’m not a _person_ , I’m a tool.” His words pick up speed, as though he were hurrying to spit out a mouthful of poison. “Everybody else figured that out, and eventually these idiots will learn that too. I don’t need to be trusted, I don’t need you worrying about me, I just… I just...”

Another pause after his voice trails off. There’s a creak of shifting wood. Lucifer’s voice, still gentle, as though content to ignore the strange and cruel things Sandalphon is saying. “Does it still hurt?”

“It hasn’t killed me yet. I can train just fine.”

She is prepared for Lucifer to go over all the reasons that is a terrible idea. She is not prepared for him to sigh and say, “I’ll speak with Professor Djeeta about supervised training sessions.”

“Do I still have to use butter knives in the dining hall? It’s humiliating.”

“Probably, yes. These things take time.”

Sandalphon’s voice has slowly lost its bite. It’s almost meek when he says, “I wish you’d stop being so damn nice to me. I don’t deserve it.”

Lucifer laughs, quiet and soft. Michael has never heard him laugh before, she realises, and the sound makes her stomach feel like it’s dropped to the floor. Something is very, horribly, wrong. 

He says, “I wish to be kind to you. It’s been so long since I was able to spend time with you, and I… Allow me to be selfish.”

Michael straightens herself up to her feet, ignoring the ache in her knee from kneeling down so long on the stone paving, picks a direction and starts walking. She’s heard enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Courtney for proofreading this. Apologies for the back-and-forth tense changes, I wrote this in a fugue state.
> 
> Some day I will finish a multi-chaptered work but evidently not today.


	2. Mutiny

It was a bright spring morning when Ohr VI, King of the Astral Isles, was assassinated in the throne room of his palace. 

Michael was 15 years old. She had just begun her training with the Royal Guard, preparing her for the lofty appointment she had been given. When Lucifer was crowned she would become his Sword, his right-hand, Captain of his Royal Guard. 

He’d put off the decision until his 16th nameday, and when he had told her that  _ she  _ was who he had decided upon—that she had the skills necessary for the role, that Belial had recommended her, that he looked forward to seeing her growth—well, if she stammered when she accepted then that was surely understandable.

She trained daily alongside the Guard. She had little free time, but enough that she could still keep up with the other noble youth who lived at the palace. And she threw herself into her training with a passion that startled her. Lucifer was kind, if distant, but to be acknowledged and chosen for so great a role was a joy she’d never felt before. 

And Lucifer was not the only one who had recognised her skill.

Belial was so easy to talk to. She had other friends, of course, but none of them  _ listened  _ the way he did. Uriel was as focused as she on his training, but he honed his body for the sake of it rather than for any single goal. Raphael was a friend and always supportive, but he seemed to most enjoy company if it took the form of somebody silently reading in the same room as him. 

If Michael ever had personal problems then Gabriel was the person to who she would first turn. But Gabriel was a noble lady and had no interest in being a warrior. She gently steered the conversation away from subjects that she considered too heavy, speaking instead of palace gossip or new novels, and it left Michael itching for somebody she could talk to about the wonderful new things she was learning alongside the Guard.

Belial listened. When she spoke, he listened to everything she said.

That had been the downfall of all of them.

———

Another month, another battle. Raphael’s face was tight and drawn whilst his younger cousin, Grimnir, was uncharacteristically silent. If it were any other day she could imagine Gabriel beside them on the deck, teasing the both of them for their boat-sickness and offering him one of her medicinal remedies.

But Gabriel was still below decks checking supplies, and Uriel was pacing closer to the bow, and they had been tasked with taking arms against Grimnir’s adoptive father. He had mutinied, raising an army under the banner of the Dusk Church, and the Knights of Helel had been so unprepared that they had to send a boatload of students as potential reinforcements.

The Knight accompanying them, Jeanne, had told them that with the Goddess’s grace they would see no fighting, serving only to move supplies and aid the wounded. Michael thinks of their luck so far and makes sure to keep her sword at her side.

Professor Gran is at the stern watching the scenery recede into the distance behind them. Sandalphon has been left back at the monastery, thankfully, along with Lyria, Vyrn and Professor Djeeta. Lucifer is probably somewhere below decks, calming the animals in the hold or making sure his weapons are prepared in case of battle.

(It had been dark when Lucifer had joined her in the cathedral, but he hadn’t chided her for being out after curfew. They had sat beside one another in the pews, the distance between them just far enough that she couldn’t feel the heat of his body. It was a little like being next to a ghost.

And then he had said, “If the time comes and Count Zephryus cannot be negotiated with, I will be the one to carry out his sentence.”

She hadn’t known what to say.)

She thinks of him, somewhere in the dark depths of the transport boat, polishing the sword he will use to execute Raphael’s uncle. 

She thinks of three years ago, and blood on the throne room floor.

———

It’s been over a month and Sandalphon has yet to take a single note in class. At first it had been only one of his many petty insubordinations, easy to dismiss amongst the host of other little rebellions he enacted. But the weeks moved forward, and the Professors lessened some of the restrictions placed upon him—Professor Djeeta was allowing him to train with a sword twice weekly, under her supervision—while the other teachers seemed to be keeping track of his movements less carefully. 

He has his own uniform now, though it’s a little large for him since it was never tailored. Underneath it he wears a high-necked undershirt, hood, and fingerless gloves. It’s similar to the clothes he had been wearing when they first met him in the ruins, though with his ragged armour exchanged for the uniform jacket. Unfortunately, with Gabriel’s modified skirt and Uriel’s habit of keeping half of his shirt-buttons undone, she cannot critique him for altering his uniform to be even more modest. 

But she’s pretty sure his heeled boots are the same ones that he’d been wearing in the ruins, when...

Just looking at him irritates her. He’d finally begun to pay attention to the lectures, though he still didn’t engage in conversations during or between classes, but every time she saw him his notebook was closed and his quill was unused. He had been given the frankly absurd privilege of attending the Officer’s Academy, and he clearly wasn’t taking it seriously.

———

Sandalphon is always the last to leave classes. That made it easy for Michael to corner him after lessons were done for the day; all she needed to do was lean against the wall outside and wait, watching students come and go until he finally emerged.

He had been unhappy to be stopped, obviously. But his eyes had widened comically when she had said, “You don’t take notes in class.”

His expression had quickly dropped back to his usual scowl, but there was a different edge to it. Almost like fear, with the way his eyes darted around the courtyard and scanned the students there. “I’m not talking about this here,” he’d said. 

She couldn’t allow her dislike of him to override her diplomatic abilities, though she had to bite her tongue to avoid the snappish response that bubbled up within her.

The graveyard was always empty of people, so that was where Sandalphon had tugged nervously at the gloves on his hands and said, voice unusually quiet, “I can’t write.”

When she had started to question him he had flushed so bright and fast it were as though somebody had splashed his face with beetroot juice, insisting that of course he knew how to read, obviously, it was just…

He had stared out at the landscape that stretched beyond the graveyard wall and said, “Don’t tell Lucifer. He’ll act like this is all his fault, again.” 

Then, still unable to meet her eyes, he had added, “ _ Please _ .”

Michael hates secrets being kept from her. She hates this routine of implications and half-spoken truths. But she had, reluctantly, agreed to keep his secret. At least so long as he agreed to work on his deficiency—and she had an idea of how to do that.

———

The library takes up most of the second floor of the monastery’s central hall. It is a useful location for study, but the dust and strictly-enforced volume limit on speech meant few students regularly took advantage of the facilities. 

Raphael is the exception. He spends a great deal of time within the library, at a small table tucked neatly away in the back of the stacks. Since that fateful expedition out to Dydroit, and the events that had unfolded with his uncle, his time spent here had only increased. 

Sandalphon follows her up the staircase and through the corridors like a noisy shadow, his heels clicking against the stone floor. It was remarkable to remember how stealthy he had been, in the ruins, but then again the noise from the monsters had probably helped hide him. 

He hesitates a moment at the entrance to the library, and when she looks over her shoulder she can see him paused in the doorway, eyes scanning over the room.

“You haven’t been to the library yet?” It makes sense. His movements were monitored, so he probably had never been given a tour of the grounds—beyond being told all the places he wasn’t supposed to go.

“No,” he admits, eyes still roaming over the shelves. “That’s… a lot of books.”

“Yes. It’s a  _ library _ . Hurry up, I have other duties to attend. And make sure you keep your voice down.”

She turns and starts walking further into the shelves, listening for the tell-tale sound of his boots behind her. She’s not here to indulge his curiosity, she’s here to make him less of an embarrassment to the class.

Raphael doesn’t look up from his reading, not even when she clears her throat meaningfully. It takes calling his name for him to even glance up from his tome, but when he sees her his eyebrows draw together. “Is it something important?”

He’s a man of few words, so she knows to be to the point with him. She steps to the side and points at Sandalphon where he’s trying to lurk between the shelves. 

“He can read but not write. Teach him.”

Then, ignoring Sandalphon’s spluttering, she turns on her heel and leaves. They can figure out the rest of it.

———

The Astral Isles were, depending on how one counted them, either five or six islands in total. The largest isle, Astra, was surrounded by the other four main islands; Eoniho to the north, Dydriot to the east, Sturren to the south and Boshaft to the west. 

Astra also had at its centre a giant lake where the smallest isle, Canaan, sat comfortably amongst the wind-whipped waves. 

Surrounded by water and covered by large tracts of forest, the isle was a perfect miniature kingdom within itself. The land was fertile, allowing for a few small farms to flourish, whilst the surrounding lake both facilitated trade by boat and formed a natural defence. The rocky shoreline ensured that docking anywhere other than the fortified ports meant one ran a risk of their vessel being dashed to pieces.

There was no safer place for the royals and nobles to send their heirs. It had stood for millennia, never touched by war or conflict.

But that did not mean intrusions were impossible. 

———

The Goddess’s Sanctum is a long way down. When they reach the base of the steps she can hear ragged breathing from the less physically-adept students.

Then the door opens and they are all left breathless. The chamber is huge, the ceiling supported by thick pillars. It seems impossible that such a cavernous space could have been sitting so long underneath the monastery, generations of students and knights walking above it unknowingly.

Closest to the door lay rows of tombs, figures who were given the high honour of taking their final rest within the presence of the Goddess herself. 

Large murals cover the far wall, telling what appears to be the story of the Goddess. In the panel farthest left a mighty draconic figure hovers above the world, flanked by two figures. One is the Goddess, her dark skin and golden hair easy to recognise; the other, paler-skinned and clad in white, she doesn’t know.

The next panel shows the draconic figure split from head to base, a gaping void between their two halves. Blood pours down from the heavens to the earth. The Goddess and the white-clad figure stand at either side of the creature, weeping at the sight. 

Michael does not consider herself devout, but she was raised to be familiar with the teachings of the church. Never, in the years of services she has attended, has any priest mentioned this draconic figure and the Goddess’s pale companion. She wonders what they are doing on the wall of the Goddess’s sleeping chamber. 

Hanging sheets of drapery separate these strange panels from the tale she is more familiar with. The Goddess gifts the Halos to the saints, her champion standing beside her and glowing with her divine light. The vile figure of Avatar, beastly manifestation of man’s folly, looms behind them.

The ancient tale continues across the walls. Avatar corrupts the land-spirits, sending them into a frenzy as they attack one another and shatter the land into fragmented isles. The champion, flanked by the saints, strikes down Avatar. The beast falls into a deep pit beneath the earth.

More drapery hangs on the walls, curtains of dusty fabrics separating the champion’s valiant tale from the tragic end. The Goddess falls into her deep and endless rest, the maddened land-spirits falling asleep alongside her. A group of figures, clad in black robes, take the body of the sleeping Goddess beneath the earth to lay undisturbed.

The final panel is a copy of the leftmost image, but the draconic figure and Goddess are missing from it. The small pale figure stands alone, hands clasped together in prayer, the empty space beside them hauntingly sad.

In the centre of the Sanctum, raised on a platform, is the Goddess’s Cradle. For the holiest site in the realm is is shockingly stark; no decorations, no gold, no silks. Nothing more than a cube of polished grey stone.

Somewhere above the Archbishop performs the Goddess’s Lullaby, soothing her sleep for another year. 

And somewhere within Canaan, forces conspire to take advantage of that unguarded moment.

———

As expected, members of the Dusk Church tried to use the Goddess’s Lullaby to attack the Archbishop. As Lucifer and the Professors had deduced they gathered their forces in the Sanctum, to strike the Cathedral from below and bypass the guards. 

The fight was vicious, but the priests and their supporters were no match for the trained combatants of Bright Stars house. Despite this a group of stray rebel priests reached the Goddess’s Cradle, and in their desperation one used his weapon to break open the stone with a horrible crack.

It was not the Goddess they found within.

Bab-el-Mandeb, the Goddess’s own weapon, and Eden, the weapon of her champion, had been thought lost for centuries. Michael only recognised them from an illustrated tome she had been shown as a child to teach her the Goddess’s story.

In person they were more fearsome than the books had portrayed. The gleaming spear Eden was the colour of bleached bone, twisted and chipped like ruined masonry. It split into twin blades when Professor Djeeta touched it, as though changing itself to fit her fighting style. 

The jet-black axe, Bab-el-Mandeb, glowed crimson from within like a dying ember. In Professor Gran’s hands it channelled magic like a staff, striking down the remaining priests with fearsome bolts of pure darkness.

In the end the rebels were defeated, their surviving members taking their own lives before they could be questioned by the Knights. 

The smell of blood and magic hung thick in the air, the Professors stood by the cracked stone like figures from a storybook, and the Goddess did not sleep in her Cradle.


	3. Tower

Michael had turned over every possibility in her head as she paced outside Lucifer’s door, weighing whether she’d be executed or merely imprisoned, whether Lucifer would be angry or—perhaps, worse— _disappointed_ in how she’d failed. 

What she had never consider was Lucifer, face blank as parchment, listening to her entire confession and then simply forgiving her.

She had fed information to Belial. Every time she had told him about the Royal Guard’s training routines, or shift changes, or a guard caught slacking at his post, he had passed those off-handed comments and complaints to Lucilius’s rebels. They had used that knowledge to infiltrate the palace, walking unhindered through the unpatrolled corridors and bribing the less-scrupulous guards. 

Nobody in the throne room had any chance to prepare before they were set upon.

“It was my responsibility,” Lucifer had said, “I alone can be blamed. You have nothing to apologise for.”

But it wasn’t his fault. It was Michael’s, and there was no way to change that.

———

The Archbishop was waiting for them in the Sanctum. It was difficult to fit the entire class into a meeting room, especially with everybody trying to pepper the man with questions, but eventually they succeeded.

The doors had slammed shut, and the class fell silent as the Archbishop stood in front of them, hands clasped together, and began to speak. He explained that the Goddess’s Cradle had always been empty. It was a decoy. He could not tell them where she really slept.

Nobody in the class would be permitted to speak of the missing Goddess any further. Not with each other, not with their teachers, not with the Knights. They couldn’t risk anybody overhearing and discovering the truth; the Dusk Church had already proved their willingness to risk the Goddess’s safety.

Haltingly, the class swore secrecy to the Archbishop. They would keep what they knew to themselves, on pain of death if they broke their vow.

To herself, Michael silently swore she would do everything in her power to ensure those vows were kept.

Things changed, slow but steady, like the turning of spring into summer. Sandalphon finally started taking notes in class. He wrote slowly, his letters shaky when she glimpsed them over his shoulder, but at least he no longer sat sullenly with his book closed and arms crossed. Raphael stopped hiding in the library; she found him at the training grounds one evening, leaning against a pillar as Uriel trained, offering him advice on his form.

Raphael’s young cousin, Grimnir, seemed to have recovered some of his energy. He started spending time with the Jade Geckos students, apparently having an interest in their poetry. Lucifer encouraged inter-house cooperation, so Michael didn’t dissuade him from his new friendships.

But wherever she goes, whoever she is with, the secret they all must keep stands behind her. Every time she speaks she can feel it breathing down her neck.

She wonders if the Goddess has nightmares, too.

———

A reliquary was stolen from Blackmoon Chapel, a small church building on the western island of Boshaft. The young head of the Scarlet Doves house, Orchis, is beside herself; reports from the chapel’s priests say the thieves claimed the relic in the name of the princess’s homeland, the Erste Empire. 

Orchis, voice sharp and unwavering, had quickly insisted that the Empire had not ordered the incident, nor were they interested in cutting deals with bandits. Her bodyguard, an ever-looming masked figure, remained silent.

Michael thinks the princess is honest but naive. Like Lucifer, her parents had both passed away before she was of-age to take the throne. Unlike the Astral Isles, where a regency council of high-ranking nobles was formed to govern the Kingdom, in Erste all the Empire’s power was passed into the hands of their Prime Minister,

Prime Minister Freesia is a woman of limitless ambition and under her rule the Erste Empire has slowly but inexorably expanded across the southern islands of Phantagrande. Thus far the conquests have been bloodless, the Empire using their economic might—and the unspoken threat posed by their technological advances—to pressure smaller isles to sign away their freedom through carefully-worded treaties.

But war looms like a dark cloud over the archipelago. It is a more a question of when, than if, the rain will fall. 

Bright Stars are asked to join the Knights in safely recovering the relic. 

———

The battle was going well, the students and their accompanying Knights slowly taking down the thieves as they made their way deeper into the tower, until one of the bandits fighting Katalina had asked her where the ‘Girl in Blue’ was.

Whatever that question meant, it unnerved her enough that her sword merely glanced off the man’s armour. Professor Djeeta had to dart over to her side to block the axe swinging down at her back, and then distracted by the unexpected movement Europa’s magical attack missed, almost hitting Shiva. Their entire strategy fell to pieces around them as the bandits took the opportunity to attack the group’s healers and ranged attackers.

Altair, the Knight accompanying them, barked orders and adjustments to their planned strategy. Thanks to his quick thinking, and the powerful new weapons the Professors wielded, despite their original plan being ruined they rallied enough to surround the bandits and their leader at the centre of the tower. 

The bandit leader was a lanky man, desperation writ upon his face as one-by-one his men fell around him. He pulled a red glass bottle out of his bag, holding it up to the light. Altair said, “That’s the relic-”

And the man had pulled the stopper out of the top, lifted it to his lips, and drank.

At first the transformation was beautiful. Two glimmering wings unfurled from his back like a flower blooming, the glow from them bathing the room in radiant light. Then he had screamed as his figure twisted, flesh writhing and pooling like molten wax, a horned and winged monster forming from his ruined form.

“Chaos Beast,” Altair had said, voice almost reverent with horror. Then he had snapped out of the trance the transformation had bespelled them with, shouting orders to his Knights as the Beast wailed and roared.

It had taken both Professors working in tandem to finally defeat the beast. Gran fired bolt after bolt of magic from a distance until it was stunned long enough for him to close the gap between them, swinging Bab-el-Mandeb with brutal efficiency. Djeeta whirled around it to avoid the biting teeth and swiping claws, one moment slicing at it with her twin blades, the next sinking Eden’s spear-form deep into the Beast’s torso.

Michael realised, as she watched them, that they had been holding back against their human opponents. 

At the end of it the Beast lay dead in the heart of the tower, still smoking from the magical blasts that had finally defeated it. Europa and Gabriel leaned against one another as Raphael used his healing magic to patch up the worst of their injuries. Sandalphon looked like he was going to be sick, his gaze carefully turned away from the mass of flesh that had been the bandit leader. Lucifer stood beside him like a statue, sword sheathed but his hand still on the hilt.

Altair did not need to explain what had happened, for Gabriel already knew.

Long long ago, before the battle against Avatar, the Goddess had given the champion and each saint a vial of holy Elixir. The liquid would heal their wounds and replenish their energy, but could only be used once. 

Not every saint had needed to use their Elixir. After the battle the remaining vials had been passed down through the families descended from those saints, packed away in reliquaries or entrusted to shrines for safekeeping. 

But there were tales of those who ignored the Goddess’s words and stole Elixirs for their own use. Those morality plays always ended with the same message: Elixir only healed those who had Halos, the sign of the Goddess’s blessing. Those who lacked a Halo would suffer a fate worse than death.

“My family safeguards a vial of Elixir,” Gabriel had added in explanation. “It was part of why I became interested in medicine.”

Michael remembered a winter night, standing at the edges of some dull celebration in the dress her parents had forced her to wear, Gabriel saying, “That’s why I like medicine more than healing magic. You don’t need to learn spells, or bring a healer with you. Anybody can use a healing potion, and they work on everybody. Isn’t it a wonderful thing?”

The Gabriel in Michael’s memories had been smiling and young, pink dress fluttering around her ankles as she moved. Now she was dressed for war, her eyes glassy with tiredness, blood in her hair.

———

After the battle, after two weeks of sleep and schoolwork, after tea parties with Gabriel and sparring practice with Uriel, Michael approaches Sandalphon.

Weeks of ignoring him have not yet softened the discomfort she feels in his presence. She tries to do what Professor Gran suggested, looking at him as if he were a stranger she’d never met before.

In that light he almost seems harmless. He fidgets nervously with his gloves when in large groups, rarely speaking unless spoken to. Sometimes she passes him and Lucifer walking side by side in the gardens; once she had glimpsed the both of them in the greenhouse, Sandalphon crouched down to stare at a row of plants. Lyria seems fond of him, despite having a better reason than any of them to distrust him, and the Professors seem entirely unfazed.

(She had asked Lyria about it, of course. The girl had twisted her hands in the fabric of her skirt and said, “Something… really bad happened to him. And the same thing happened to me. But I had Katalina, and then Gran and Djeeta, and then everybody else to help me. He didn’t have anybody. I… I wanted him to have the same chance I had. It didn’t seem fair.”

Despite her halting speech, despite the uncertain lilt to her voice, the girl had a core of resilient conviction. Michael couldn’t help but admire that bravery. She hoped, for Lyria’s sake, that Sandalphon would not disappoint her.)

In that battle, in the tower, he hadn’t used his Halo. And she couldn’t figure out _why_ —if he hadn’t been taking the fight seriously he wouldn’t have gotten so many injuries, darting in front of his classmates to block blows or take magical attacks in their place. But despite the bruises he must have received, despite the pallor that washed over his face whenever he took a bolt of dark magic, not once did she see the glow of his Halo activating.

She just can’t understand him. And, worse, she feels like everybody else knows something that she doesn’t.

So she finds him sitting in a corner of the Monastery gardens, textbook in his lap. His hair has grown a little longer, curling around his jaw, and the sunlight tinges it copper. As it always does, her hand aches at the sight of him. 

She had asked every healer in the monastery to examine it. Raphael had said it was perfectly healed. Rosetta had said the damage had been minor, the healing magic and potions administered quick enough to prevent permanent injury. The young priestess Sophia said she would pray to the Goddess to ease the discomfort. The gardener, Lennah, had suggested herbal teas before bed.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

———

“I was asked to avoid using it.”

It was a bad explanation. Both of them seemed to know it by the way he bit his lip, knuckles white where he gripped his book. But he stared down at his hands and said nothing more.

She had frowned down at him. “By the teachers? Surely in a real battle-”

“No. It wasn’t them.”

———

Sandalphon said, “It isn’t my place to talk about it.”

Lucifer said, “It is not my tale to tell.”

Michael is stuck between two brick walls. 

Sandalphon had said it wasn’t the teaching staff, and it wasn’t any of the Monastery staff, but when Michael—desperately trying to piece her scraps of knowledge into a recognisable form— had said, “Well, other than Lucifer-” he had flinched.

So she went to Lucifer, who did not say it was _not_ he who asked Sandalphon to cease using his Halo, but also did not say that it _was_. He said a great many gentle words, and none of them meant anything. 

He doesn’t trust her. 

She thought she was prepared for the day that Lucifer realised he had made a mistake in choosing her, thought she had steeled her heart to that possibility. But the steel of her heart was just a sheet of soft lead and Lucifer’s trust must have been lost a long time ago.

She sits hunched over at the edge of her bed, head in her hands and elbows resting on her knees, counting her breaths. Eight beats and then inhale. Eight beats and then exhale. 

Swords aren’t supposed to question like this. If she was good at her role, like her mother had been, she would be able to put all those thoughts aside and focus on what her duties were. If she were good at this she’d be able to accept that there were some things she simply didn’t need to know.

Or, maybe, she wouldn't have these questions at all because Lucifer would tell her these things instead of hiding them.

If she were more like Mother...

But her mother had been run through alongside the King and every other unfortunate soul in the throne room, and the blood had sunk so deep into the stone that no amount of washing would rid them of the stain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please do not expect consistency or an upload schedule. i have very little dopamine and cold weather makes my hands hurt.


	4. Rumours

In the morning her fears seem so much smaller, her duties so much more manageable. That is always the way of it; her mind builds itself up with kindling and dry wood, piling uncertainties in an unseemly heap until a stray match sets the whole thing ablaze. Sometimes the result is anger that sends her to the training grounds, and sometimes it is a fear that leaves her shaking, and sometimes it is a sorrow that weighs her bones with lead.

She likes to think of these rare occurrences as a broken blade being returned to the forge, her worries and stray thoughts burning away to leave her clean and whole. She likes to remember the old stories, where warriors would be put through trial after trial until they are strong. Only she never really feels stronger afterwards. 

She just feels tired.

She washes her face and dresses herself, trying to ignore the dark circles that have drawn themselves under her eyes. Before she hooks her mother’s sword onto her belt loop she draws it from the sheath, holding it in carefully in her hand. 

She no longer remembers how it felt when she first received it. The weight of it at her side, the feel of it in her hand, the spikes around the handle that had poked at her hip before she learned how to walk with it. Now it is so much a part of her that she wears it in her dreams.

She clips the sword to her belt, heading out of her room and into the morning light. In the following days she will take notes in her lectures, take tea with her friends, and—she tells herself this firmly, like a mother scolding an unruly child—she will not think of unanswered questions. 

———

The Officer’s Academy does not teach students by lecture alone. Every month the Archbishop assigns a mission to each of the five houses, intended to allow the pupils to gain real-world combat experience by rendering aid to those in need and protecting the populace from harm. 

Michael appreciates them; before the Academy most of her life had been spent in the palace, rarely venturing further than the surrounding countryside and capital city. Despite the circumstances, travelling across Phantagrande was a rare pleasure. It seemed to be good for the other noble students particularly, showing them the difficulties faced by the common folk of the Archipelago.

For the coming month Bright Stars house is assigned a simple mission: A church-owned ruin has been overrun with monsters, which are spreading out from the cave and threatening the nearby townsfolk. The students and the Professors are to find why the monsters are gathering, cull their numbers, and ensure that the town is safe once more.

A simple task. Until the day of the mission comes, and it isn’t long before the scenery passing them by looks more and more familiar. She bites her tongue; Uriel does not.

“Hey,” he says, “aren’t we near the ruin where Lyria was kidnapped?”

Sandalphon, when she glances over to him, appears to be trying to shrink into his seat.

“ _Something_ riled up the native monster population of the caverns,” Professor Djeeta says from her position at the front of the wagon. 

Professor Gran looks up from the papers he’d been shuffling through his hands. “Yeah, that’s about all we could figure out from the reports. Hopefully we’ll learn more when we can investigate the site.”

Michael is somewhat glad that, since the kidnapping incident, Lyria had been asked to stay behind at the Academy with Vyrn, rather than joining her classmates on missions. Awkward as this already was, having the victim return to her place of imprisonment would have surely made it worse.

———

Monster extermination was a job Michael had assisted in countless times before. Most settlements had some form of protection against monster incursions, whether that be protective walls or city guards—but, if a particularly large monster population developed near a settlement who had no ability to deal with them, the Knighthood of either Astra or the Church would send assistance. 

Newer recruits with the Royal Guard often accompanied Astra’s Knights on such expeditions, using them for combat training much the way the Academy used their missions to train the students. Cutting down monsters to protect the citizenry was how Michael had honed her own skills in battle, though that was always on the lands near the capital city.

The cavern system they visited now was at the shoreline of Lake Celestial, the great lake that separated Canaan from Astra. She had been bitter, on her first visit, that Lyria’s captor had hidden her so close. Now she supposed it saved them all a long journey, needing only a boat and carriage ride to retrace their steps.

Across from them, now, the island rose out of the water in steep cliffs, the twin ports hidden by the angle of view. The only visible part of the island was the mountain known as the Goddess’s Throne, the Monastery nestled in amongst the stone. It was so small and far away it seemed like a child’s toy. 

A cavern system of this size, so close to settlements, should at worst hold a small population of cave bats. But monsters were hard to predict and easy to underestimate, so Michael made sure her blade was clean and sharp.

———

When they arrive at the caverns the Professors split the class in two, Professor Djeeta and most of the younger students staying nearer the cave’s entrance to take care of the cave bats, whilst Professor Gran’s group ventures to the ruins deeper within. 

Without the fog, without the constant threat of attack from any side, everything feels different. The monsters are easy to spot and easier to defeat. The corpses they find tell the story of what happened between their last visit and today; cave bats savaged by wolf-monsters, wolf-monster corpses marked by gargoyle claws.

Here is the root of the problem; the monsters Sandalphon called upon in his fight against them, clearly foreign to the caverns. Most of them were wiped out in the initial battle, but enough must have survived to throw off the balance of the local ecosystem. Then the gargoyles came, setting up their nests amongst the stonework of the ruins.

They’ve only found one living specimen of Sandalphon’s monsters, and they have it cornered in a dead-end tunnel. It’s wolf-like in shape, with dark purplish fur and four small, scraggly wings sprouting from its back. It growls from where it is backed against the wall, hackles raised and wings limply twitching.

Sandalphon is far enough away from the rest of the group that the torchlight barely illuminates his face. He’s always been fast, which was how he was the first to discover the monster in the tunnel, but it also means there’s only him and the Professor between the beast and the other students. 

The monster fixes him with one glowing red eye and makes a high keening noise. So far as Michael can tell, it is the last of the wolf-monsters left. They’ll defeat it, move onto the gargoyles, and then be done. 

That’s what she thought, at least, but then Professor Gran pokes Sandalphon in the shoulder and asks, “You can control them, right?”

Sandalphon’s sword hand twitches, and he glares back at the Professor. “I wasn’t controlling them, it’s just…” He looks back over his shoulder, towards the rest of the group. She can’t tell what he’s looking for, but he must have found it because he sheathes his sword with a click. 

“Fine. Let’s be done with this.” He holds out his hand to the monster and says, “Domini, here.”

The monster trots over obediently. When it reaches him it leans its head against his outstretched hand, tail wagging rapidly. Sandalphon doesn’t move.

“Neat,” Professor Gran says, moving closer, but before he can take a second step the monster’s head swings towards him and growls. The beast almost reaches Sandalphon’s shoulder in height, and though it seems weak Michael knows how much damage this monster could inflict. Gran holds up both his hands and takes an exaggerated stride backwards. 

Sandalphon taps it on top of its head. Its growl cuts off as it turns back to look at him, letting out another keening whine. It nudges against his hand until his fingers start to rub small circles atop its head.

“Oh,” Gabriel says.

“How does that even work?” Uriel asks, at almost the same time.

Sandalphon is very quiet, staring down at the monster. “For most of my life I lived in a research institute.” His voice is flat, as though he were reciting from a textbook. “They often used stray and unwanted animals for their experiments. The Domini used to be dogs, so they’re just... used to following people’s orders. When I left the institute I broke them out with me, and you know what happened next.”

Michael feels a little like she’d just been handed an advanced coursebook for a subject she’s never studied before. Or, maybe, like she’d been walking down a staircase in the dark and missed a step.

“There,” Sandalphon says, lip curled into a snarl as he glares over at the Professor. “Are you _happy_ now?”

“Yup!” Gran says, smiling and flashing a thumbs up. 

“Excuse me Professor,” Lucifer says, and Michael does not miss the way Sandalphon immediately turns towards his voice, irritation slipping from his face like it had never been there. “What do you intend to do with the monster?”

“We’ll take it back with us. Will can probably find somewhere to keep it.”

“Nonsense!” Sandalphon says, aghast, pulling his hand away from where he’d been absently petting the beast. “You can’t just take it back with you. It attacked you!”

“So did you,” Gran says with a shrug. “Plus, I like dogs.”

Sandalphon stares back at the Professor. The light from their torches is bright, but he’s far enough away from them that dark shadows are cast across his face. “It would be kinder to put it down. You can’t make a pet out of a monster.”

Professor Gran spins to face the rest of the students, clapping his hands together to gain the group’s attention the same way he does in class. “Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Uriel. You four are going to form the front of the group. I’ll follow just behind you. Sandalphon and Lucifer, you two are going to hang back with the Domini and give support if there are more gargoyles than the other four can handle.”

———

Bright Stars were not the only house to return with an extra guest. Umber Foxes had been sent to investigate a series of disappearances to the west of Canaan, not too distant from Bright Stars’ own mission. 

Now back at the Academy they spun a tale of a camp hidden deep in the woods, a masked and silent warrior holding innocent villagers captive. Stranger still, they discovered that amongst the captive villagers was an Academy student who had vanished last year. The girl, Raven, had few memories of her captivity; the staff of the Academy were currently deciding whether to chance sending her back to her home nation, or instead let her finish her training at the Academy whilst they uncovered why she had been held for so long.

Sandalphon was questioned, of course. Two kidnapping incidents in such close proximity were unlikely to be a coincidence, but whatever he said to the Archbishop apparently cleared him of suspicion. It didn’t stop the gossip.

It wasn’t until he withdrew back into himself, shoulders hunched as though ever-expecting a blow, silent unless spoken to, that she realised how much the months he had spent with them had softened his hard edges. 

Will, the monster-obsessed scholar, was indeed able to find space for the Domini—though it continued to only tolerate Sandalphon’s presence. Some students from the other houses appeared to be attempting to befriend it, giving it food scraps and letting it acclimate to human presence. Michael doesn’t think they’ll have much luck.

———

Michael loves Uriel like a brother, but sometimes she wants to throw a chair at him. Ever since the incident in the caverns, he hasn’t stopped asking questions. 

What kind of research centre did Sandalphon come from? Why’d he leave? How do you turn a dog into a winged wolf, anyway? What’s he doing in the library all the time—actually, this one Raphael had answered, much to Sandalphon’s dismay, and completely side-tracked the discussion.

Ever-present Lucifer turns all the questions aside with the ease and grace of a swan gliding, unhurried, over the surface of a still pond. Even Uriel isn’t immune to Lucifer’s ability to change the conversation to something simpler, drawn into discussions of the upcoming battle between the houses.

People underestimate Uriel. It’s his appearance, mostly—he’s strong and loud and brash, shirt always half-open, sleeves rolled up to show the thick muscles of his forearms—but some of it is his company, too. Next to the studious bookworm Raphael, and the effortless genius of Lucifer, it seems obvious that his talents lie in his physical strength, rather than his mind.

That assumption is, of course, flawed. Raphael is intelligent, certainly, but has always been far more interested into philosophising than more practical concerns. Gabriel likes gossip and intrigue, but she knows when to stop pushing. Uriel is dedicated. When he trains he does so with purpose and care, sparing no effort but wasting no time. When he questions, he prods and pokes until he finds the weakest point.

He’s not totally incapable of giving up, of course—even he will back off when he knows he’s pushing somebody too far, or digging into something better left buried. But nobody is telling him to stop, only speaking in circles around the issue or brushing him off, so she can’t see him quitting his search for information any time soon.

Goddess knows that, when it comes to Sandalphon, Lucifer seems unable to give any straight answers.

———

The Battle of the Fox and Hound is a tradition dating back centuries. Long ago, representatives from the regions of Phantagrande travelled to Astra to discuss the establishment of the Academy at Canaan. The representatives of the western forests were wary of the motives of the Church, demanding proof of their good intent. A group of Knights from the Holy Kingdoms of the North, offended on the Church’s behalf, picked a fight with the representatives of the western forests, which grew into a brawl that spread through the assembled groups.

The Archbishop of the time, miraculously, managed to bring an end to the conflict before there were any casualties or major injuries. The warriors, realising that they had underestimated their rivals from the other regions, agreed that they could all become stronger by studying and learning from each other’s martial traditions. 

Such is the story told by the Archbishop when he explains the upcoming battle between the houses, though Michael isn’t sure how much is truth and how much is legend. The battle, as it is now, is meant to serve the same purpose as the fabled battle of the past; the Houses, through fighting one another, will better understand their own strengths and weaknesses. 

Michael appreciates the noble goal of betterment through conflict, a battle which is more about the improvement of the fighters than who, at the end of it, remains standing.

But she still intends to win.

Scant days before the battle, Lyria had announced that—with the aid of the Knights and Archbishop—she had been training to harness her powers into more simple magics, suitable for mock combat.

She’ll be their secret weapon.

———

She knows Lyria can handle herself in a fight, that this a mock battle, that nobody is in any real danger. But there’s a cry of pain from where Lyria, concealed amongst the trees, has been waiting for unwary students. Michael casts her gaze around herself, assessing her situation instinctively. The Jade Geckos student she just defeated is no longer a threat, already retreating to the edge of the battleground, and the other Bright Star students are already looking for their next target.

It won’t be long now until the battle is won, and if she doesn’t check on her classmate she knows the nagging what-if will act like an extra weight added to her sword hand, hampering her ability to fight until her anxiousness is settled. She peels away from the group, heading into the woods.

Somebody else had already come to Lyria's aid. Sandalphon is crouched next to her, a Scarlet Doves student knocked out cold on the ground nearby. A thin rivulet of blood snakes down Lyria’s arm. The wound at her shoulder is already glowing with a gentle healing spell, aided by Sandalphon’s Halo.

She hadn’t seen it clearly, back in the ruins, too focused on the fight. It had always been far away, obscured, only there for an instant before vanishing.

Now she sees it with unclouded eyes. The symbol glowing over his back, the mark carried in his blood, is as known to Michael as the back of her own hand. No wonder the light of it had been familiar. No wonder Lucifer made sure it was hidden.

The Halo of Providence glows brightly a moment longer, then fades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did this really take me almost a full month to write? yes. (i had an outline for what i was going to write, and then the scenes kept going different directions, and i cut over 500 words out of this chapter before it was finished bc i had to do so much rewriting and reworking.)


End file.
